I have a set. They are not installed. They appear to lower the mounting point for the lower contol arms. I have no idea how they work or what they do. Now that the t56 is installed, all be it bleeding to death, I may install these. The rearend now hops when I dump the clutch. I THINK they help this problem. If I find out they don't, I'll let you know and you can make me an offer. I think they go for about $50 new.

 

This is one of them things I can see in my head how it works, but lets see if I can explain it lol.
Antisquat resists some of the downward squatting movement of the rear of the car under acceleration.

As your car accelorates, wieght is pitched towards the rear of the car in reaction to the car's movement. The rear suspension handle this in 2 ways. 1st way is with no antisquat, and all the weight transfer is applied to the tires via the springs. The other way it can react is by using the trailing arms to brace the rear end of the car against the body moving downward on it. The trailing arms are acting like a lever to push the rear end away from the body as it squats. Doing this puts more pressure on the rear tires, but uses less of the spring rate, which means the body doesn't squat as much. To a point, buy increasing the angle of the lower trailing arm will increase antisquat. And this is what the metco instant center modification braket does.

I hope this has cleared things up for you guys, if not I'll do my best to reword this

 

A way that was simpler for me to understand them - when you launch, your axle tries to move forward before the car (inertia). The wheels drive the axle into the control arms. By the "lever" effect, if by squat, lowered springs or other reasons, the front of the control arm is lower than the rear, the axle gets lifted. When the rear of the lower control arm is lower than the axle, the forward leverages pushes the axle and tires down. So in effect, the harder you launch, the harder you'll plant the tires.

The only thing to watch out for is the instant centers will put your rear sway bar lower to the ground, and in some cases, too close to the ground.

I need to know if these instant centers will work with hotchkis control arms. Anyone know?
Thanks,
Eric

 

Are these brackets welded on the conrtol arms or what?

 

Cheston,

They can be either welded or bolted. Mine
are welded. Be forwarned, the directions stink in regards to correct placement.

Eric,

They will not work with Horchkis LCA's without modifying the bushing and spacer in the rear LCA mount. The Metco pieces are designed to be used with their arms which are narrower than the stock or Hotchkis pieces.

I am running these with Hotchkis arms, hence the part about modifications needed.

And yes, they do lower the Sway Bar. I have the Hotchkis bar and it is LOW, about 4" off the ground under the mounting points. If you are running the HA BAr( Ithink, the straight one) I WOULD NOT use these.

Hope this helps

 

A couple of questions on the ICM brackets:
1. Are they a bolt-on with BMR LCA's (which I already have)?
2. Has anybody really seen an improvement in traction and 60' times with these brackets when using drag radials? I notice most of the 60' gurus like Keith Brantley and others don't mention them in their mods.

TIA, Pat

 

Pat,

I don't have experience with the BMR arms.
BUT, if they're designed to replace the stock arms, thye will need the same modifications.

As far as track testing, I have only made one
pass and had a 2.0 60' time while spinning
the ET streets the whole time.

So hard track data I don't have.

 

Any feedback, pos or neg, on the ICM brackets? What setups are they effective on? When are they a waste of time?

 

I did them with my hotchkiss lca a few months ago.I had to give up my HA bar as these drop the lca about 2"
I plann to take my off and try to reshim my lca bushings,

a better solution (expensive)is offered
thru www.dickmillerracing.com.
I bouhgt his book highly woth $10.00

I would liked to try his adjustable upper arms,with the bracket raising them upward.

Mike

 

It's not hard to use the brackets with Hotchkiss LCAs. You just cut off the rubber and replace with the aluminum bushings. Mine are welded and bolted. My LCA angle is now 5 degrees up from rear to front (was parallel before).

What these brackets do is try to RAISE the rear on acceleration. As your rear goes up, it puts an equal and opposite force, planting your tires harder. The ideal situation is to have the whole car rise parallel to the ground. This will give best traction. I was always able to dead hook at the track, with never any tire spin, down to 1.72 60' time on my drag radials. I never shot N2O right off the line, otherwise I probably would have some 1.6s.

I'm finding right now that what I thought was tire spin with the new 3800 converter, was in reality just loss of torque due to the new cam, and 2.54 first gear. At the track this Saturday, I'll shoot N2O right off the starting line to make up that loss, and expect to have no spin at all and get back to lo 1.7s.

No sway bars, one air bag at 20lbs on the right, Hotchkiss LCAs, Metco IC Brackets and front HAL shocks set at 0.

I believe the reason guys like Keith have such excellent 60' times is the tremendous torque they have down low on those strokers. If you can get enough power right at the instant of takeoff, then due to body movement, the tires plant much better and hook.